SoCal Mayor Eileen Wang’s secret agent case is just the latest in China’s ‘nefarious long game’ to control California and U.S. politics, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told The California Post.
Wang resigned from mayor of the San Gabriel Valley city of Arcadia on Monday, the same day federal prosecutors unsealed her guilty plea deal for acting as a secret agent of the People’s Republic of China.
Essayli said Wang’s rise in SoCal politics reflects China’s desire to further its interests by planting its assets in local government, with hopes that that its PRC loyalists may grow their political careers and rise to high office, where they can do real damage.
“They’re very nefarious,” said Essayli, whose office is prosecuting Wang’s Chinese secret agent case. “They play the long game to get people into office.”
Besides influencing policy, the PRC is also concerned with punishing dissidents in the U.S., Essayli said.
Cui Guanghai of China and John Miller of the United Kingdom last year were charged in Los Angeles and Milwaukee with stalking, smuggling and illegal arms export after they tried to silence a Chinese expat living in Southern California who spoke out against top leader Xi Jinping.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation sting nabbed Guanghai and Miller for carrying a scheme to surveil the victim, install a tracking device on his car, slash the tires on his car, and purchase and destroy a pair of artistic statues the victim made depicting President Xi and President Xi’s wife.
Guanghai and Miller also paid undercover FBI assets $36,500 to convince their SoCal victim to desist from the online display of the anti-Xi statues he made.
In Wisconsin, the pair attempted to buy components of missiles, air defense radar, drones, and cryptographic devices with associated crypto ignition keys for the PRC, according to the FBI.
They fled to Hungary to evade capture by the FBI, and then to Serbia where they were apprehended by local authorities and forced to wear ankle monitors under house arrest, Essayli said.
But the fugitives cut off their electronic bracelets and fled to China. Their whereabouts are currently unknown.
The case “shows the length China goes to, to exert influence and control dissidents,” Essayli said.
Wang, 58, made her initial appearance in federal court Monday. She is set to formally plea guilty to the federal charge for secretly running a propaganda machine for China in the coming weeks.
The FBI was aware of Wang’s activities as early as 2017, when agents interviewed her handler, John Chen, who later was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of the PRC and conspiracy to bribe a public official.
Chen, who was pictured with China’s President Xi in 2021, gave orders to Wang’s then- fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, a convicted Chinese secret agent who ran Wang’s political campaign. Chen reported back to Beijing on Wang, calling her a “rising star.”
Chen’s Beijing masters told him to help Wang build relationships with influential politicians. Wang was pictured with California Attorney General Rob Banta and California U.S. Senator Alex Padilla.
China’s efforts to influence California politics don’t stop there.
The suspected ties of disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to an alleged Chinese spy named Christine Fang who volunteered on his congressional campaign prompted a two-year investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee that closed in 2022.
In a letter sent at the probe’s closure, the committee warned Swalwell “of the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions.”
The FBI last month raided Lancaster City Hall and the homes of a pair of politicians from the high-desert town in an investigation of links between the two men and China-based electric car manufacturer BYD, which is running America’s first trial of electric buses in the city.
“The concern was that the buses could be used for spying,” said a person with knowledge of the probe, which reportedly exclusively by The California Post.
The FBI continues to investigate China’s meddling in California politics and other spheres as Wang awaits her fate.
“This is not an isolated incident,” said Essayli of the case.
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